Murray Pomerance wrote: > Now, GOOD WILL HUNTING is not, to me, mediocre-and-therefore-discrdable; > it's meaningful. I am somewhat surprised about this sudden emergence of the motive of "mediocre-and-therefore-discardable"; to the extent that I have followed this thread, I cannot recall any messages to the effect that Good Will Hunting should be discarded *because* it was mediocre. Mike Frank initially raised questions about the screenplay, and a couple of people (including myself, just a lurker on this list for most of the time) came in, significantly enough, raising the issue of how the white working-class is depicted in Hollywood films. I don't remember anyone saying that the *film* was so mediocre that it might not even be worthy of a trashcan, rather, it was claimed that the film is highly problematic in regards to pursuing one of the goals it has (depicting the working-class); but the issue whether the *screenplay* deserved an oscar, and if so, why, still awaits clarification. > And Will's problem with that History grad student in > the bar suggests a widening and, for me, terrifying division between town > and gown, between the official "thinkers" and people's attempts to > think. He's a kid, after all, a bright one, and so is Matt Damon, so he > surely knew how to write Will Hunting. He's not Plato, he's a kid, and > I'm wondering how that grad student suddenly stopped being a kid when > he's clearly not much older. In fact, Will shows that he can read the > same texts, even more of them, and more deeply. But he doesn't have the > pretence and the arrogance, and what bothers me is the sense I have very > often that the pretence and arrogance really do constitute academic > life. Apart from my reaction to (and against) the implications of how the film depicts working-class youth, this is another thing I took issue with. Academics come off as arrogant, shallow, exploitative and career-driven bastards, whether as students or as teachers. The issue is not whether that's reality or not, but it is certainly significant that the "gift" of Will is one that could get him academic prowess, and that the world which his working-class background is depicted *against* is university, academia. Pursuing this opposition a little further, it could be said that the dynamics of the individual vs. environment actually work exactly the opposite for the working-class situation and its university counterpart. Working-class areas are shown to be bad places to live in, they make good people bad, and the implication is that one had better get out of there. If one stays there, the only way to do it is to form a strong bastion of close personal relationships that somehow serve as a cushion against the intrinsic evil and badness from the outside. But preferably, one should get out, and possibly get into university, an intrinsically good place, which has, unfortunately, been corrupted by bad individuals (such as the grad student in the bar). In the end, the implications confirm rather than undermine a very naive ideal of academia as a heavenly ivory tower of freedom and creativity, which is bad for Will simply because the people are not good enough. They have taken away his natural refuge, these beasts. The palace where the prince could finally take the princess to is not there anymore, too sad. (Which, by the way, eliminates what *I* would have found a nice and very relevant drift, that is, pointing out the parallelism or connection between the condition of the working-class and that of academia. The university-professor is still the god who reigns; interestingly enough, the factory-boss is not even there.) Another aspect of the grad student in the bar is, of course, his function as a rival in a good old mating ritual. Imagine the same situation, and Will's rival would have been just one of his buddies, or "class-mates" - it just wouldn't work. The princess has to be a university-person (again, note that there are no working-class women to speak of in the entire film), and so has the "dragon", who turns up as a grad-student. Only that the saviour, the prince, doesn't really know about the details of the mission, nonetheless manages to slay the dragon, then gets doubts as to whether he really wants to go through with this whole "bring the princess to the palace"-business, because the palace isn't what it used to be, and the prince is not what princes used to be, but finally, he manages to resolves these doubts and drives off to "see about a girl". I also find that what Murrey Pomerance writes above, i.e. "Will shows that he can read the same texts, even more of them, and more deeply", is not really the case. For the depth of Will's learning and reading is clearly taken away by the psychologist's "teaching" about the Sixtine chapel, where we are told that experience is what matters, so don't bother with the reading. Which basically leaves Will just where it left the grad student. Interestingly enough, this unites them in shallowness, and pretence. Only, Will is redeemed, whereas the grad student isn't. Because - coming back to what I wrote above - he's a good guy corrupted by his environment, whereas the grad student is a bad guy corrupting his paradise. > Obviously I don't have this sense always. But sometimes, and it's > disturbing. And this idea, that one can have such a sensation and it can > be disturbing, and that academic life can be this way, is surely worth > thinking about, and this film is surely worth taking seriously if it > raises this issue to the foreground. To get off on yet another tangent (though this goes miles away from discussion the screenplay, but then again, this thread already has, so why not): There is also the contrast between *real*-life experience and theory (the latter symbolized by academia). And the emphasis is clearly on the former, which is valued highly, whereas theory is basically presented as, well, what losers who don't have Will's gift have to do to make up for it. For Will just *does* and *experiences* maths, whereas others - unfortunately - have to not only *work* at it, but also theorize and conceptualize it. It is this aspect of the film which I found, from a viewpoint of academia, the most disturbing and alarming. Theory is for the unhappy, the unfulfilled, the deficient. To my recollection, Will is never told that, yeah, it's great that you can do all these things much faster and easier and with better results than us, but could you explain them, analyze them, give them meaning. Instead, the academics uncritically admire his natural genius, and only take issue with the fact that he doesn't seem to eager on pursuing it. OK, Will verbalizes and conceptualizes well when it comes to fighting his rival for the princess. But again, this is a skill which he has and utilizes for the mating ritual, but which is not at all brought up, let alone valued, in the academic context (and ultimately denigrated by the psychologist anyway). So he can do the theory job, if he has to, but it's better not to have to, and just *experience*. Let alone discuss. This goes far beyond the opposition of genius vs. not-so-genius-and-therefore-having-to-work-at-it. It goes towards an all-encompassing and all-redeeming notion of experience, for which theory, or argumentation, can but be a poor substitute. Certainly a film worth considering, but just because of its inherent problems (none of which, I would say, are part of some sort of intended complexity), and because of the way these may stand for certain social trends. -- birgit kellner department for indian philosophy hiroshima university ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite